


Daniel's Dreams

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), תנ"ך | Tanakh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-18
Updated: 2004-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 06:53:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1637609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel learns the source of his prophetic dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Daniel's Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> Written for glossolalia

 

 

Daniel's Dreams

No less a personage than the King himself released Daniel from the lions' den, and he smiled for his King and clasped and kissed his hand. Even so, for long afterwards, Daniel had trouble sleeping. Everyone around him thought it shock, and it was, but not for the reason they surmised. For in the lions' den, he had had his first true visitation.

In the lions' den, Daniel had been, well, comfortable. He knew always that the LORD would watch over His servant, and his faith was borne out; the lions had licked his hands and face, and let him curl up warmly in their midst. Lying snug against the side of a huge matriarch of a lioness, Daniel had drifted into a peaceful sleep, and he had dreamt.

Dreamt he was young, as he'd been his first days in Babylon; dreamt his hair was black ringlets and his chin was barely fuzzed; dreamt his limbs were straight and sleek. Daniel dreamt himself young and fair again, and dreamt one far fairer yet. A beautiful young man, eyes like stars, his beard just enough to outline his jaw, tall and straight as a spear and dressed like a prince; he smiled at Daniel, laying strong broad hands on his shoulders, so kindly and so fair that Daniel thought 'angel'.

The young man heard his thought, for it was a dream, and began to laugh. His laugh filled Daniel's ears, filled the sky above them, the space about them, the world of the dream, and there were screams and wails at the edges of that laugh; Daniel felt that laugh licking at his skin like chill flames, and shivered and shuddered with a strange unreasoning fear.

The young man laughed, and shadows moved behind him, flexing and furling. "You are so certain, are you not, Daniel of the children of Israel? So very sure of your God." And with those words he kissed him.

Not a brother's kiss, not a father's, not a friend's. Soft lips burned his; strong fingers dented the flesh of his shoulders. Daniel's head tilted back, his breath shuddered in his lungs like unquiet waters, as the young man kissed him and kissed him as if to drink the soul out of him.

Then the young man released him, and it was like being torn away. "Daniel," the young man purred, like a sated lion. "Daniel!" called a distant voice he knew he must obey. Daniel opened his eyes, and it was daylight, and the King was crying out, "O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?"

The dream beat at Daniel's mind like dark wings, but the LORD had delivered him, and his King was calling him, and the lions were beginning to wake with sleepy little growls; he opened his eyes to the sunlight and said in return, "O my King, live for ever!" and put the dream from his mind.

*

The enemies of the LORD were cast to the lions, and His name was praised in all the King's dominions, and Daniel himself was loved and honored in the King's court. Daniel was happy.

But the dreams returned.

The young man returned, so fair all around him dimmed to shadows, smiling with teeth that shone like new ivory. And he kissed Daniel with those sweet burning lips, and Daniel found himself powerless to resist, as rousable as he'd been as a youth, as wanton as he'd never been. He found himself tangled in the young man's strong limbs, and bitten like a sweetmeat, sucked and stroked and taken like a woman, on his back with the young man above him, laughing and gasping and crying out. He found himself committing sins he'd never even thought of before in his life, taking the young man, who surged like a stallion beneath him, whose sweat tasted sweet when Daniel bit him and licked him. He dreamt, and he woke up sticky like a boy, morning by morning; he slipped from bed to kneel bare-legged upon the floor and pray, but heard no answer, no response.

Just the dreams of abominable, glowing passion, night after night.

Daniel was known for reading dreams, but his own he found terrifyingly opaque in their clearness. He searched the writings, racked his mind, and found no answers. What had befallen him? To whom could he turn? Had he not believed in the LORD, and praised his Deliverer? He thought of the other wise men, those of Israel and Babylon and Media, and could not imagine himself asking a one of them to interpret these dreams for him. He turned to drink and to poppy, hoping to sleep blankly, and the young man came to him as the only star in thick darkness, piercing his flesh with teeth and nails in such painful pleasure that he would shudder awake to find himself sweating and gasping. He tried to read through the nights, burning oil like a man drinks water, studying ancient scrolls and tablets, but invariably heard ringing laughter, had them taken from his hands by strong broad ones, found himself slumped over them in the morning; after ruining a matchless scroll by crushing it, Daniel couldn't bear to risk more. He began to grow pale and lose flesh, as the Master of the Eunuchs had feared he would so long ago, and his friends told him of their worries for him.

Then one night, a night like and unlike all the others, when the young man came for him, Daniel looked up into those eyes like comets, beautiful and disastrous, and asked, "why?"

And the young man laughed, and kissed him, and said, "I thought you would never ask."

*

They stood on a high rocky place above the world, Daniel curled into the young man's side, head laid to his shoulder. It was wrong, it was sin, but he felt their young skins sliding against each other and could not peel himself away. The young man felt his tremble, and laughed, expansively throwing out an arm. "Look, Daniel, look ahead at the future."

What could Daniel do but look?

And what did he see?

Kingdoms surging and fading over the land, towers thrust into the air only to crumble, fires and smoke and building anew.....they rose, and Daniel realized that the young man bore him, and when he gasped and looked up he saw darkness take shape behind the young man, and knew it for wings.

Then he knew who it was who visited his dreams.

The young man, the Bearer of Light, knew he knew, and laughed. "Wise Daniel," he said, his whisper like his laughter, "but now, look." And Daniel looked, as they flew, down over the pulsing cities, between towers that grew high, windows sheened with clear shiny stuff; down among pale people dressed in strange, intricate garments; further along, as the clothing changed, as the horses vanished and the covered chariots moved along under their own power, belching smoke behind them. Up to a window, where curly-haired children in breeches stared at a strange box whose front glowed and flickered with moving pictures. The Light Bearer rose, wings beating like the wind, carrying Daniel up into the air and higher, up above the earth, almost to the very heavens; night fell, and the cities shone brighter than the stars, then fell dark, then shone again.

And Lucifer laughed, echoing off the sky. "Where did you think your dreams have come from all your life?" he asked Daniel, strong arm tight round his waist. Daniel shook his head, and the dark angel took his chin in an implacable hand and turned it so Daniel could look nowhere but at him. "Do you remember the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, the giant with the head of gold and the feet of clay and iron? The dream and its meaning were sent to you," and here the shining smile slipped a little, "but I brought it. I brought them all."

"But why?" Daniel gasped, struggling to not feel the strong lithe body pressed to his and so feeling it all the more. Lucifer laughed and kissed him, hard and hot. "Because you are a prophet, Daniel, and I was at the start an angel, a messenger. I like to keep my hand in."

Daniel shook. "But why does, why did He----"

"Why am I allowed?" Lucifer's teeth shone like shards of light. "Scholar that you are, have you never read of Job?"

And he let Daniel drop. And as Daniel fell he couldn't look away from Lucifer, glowing brighter and brighter as he grew further and further away, shining with a golden-white blaze like the brightest, the morning-star.

Till Daniel landed in his bed, raising sore eyelids, aching all over as if he'd been beaten.

*

Daniel dreamt prophecies for his King toll the end of his days, but they came hard; they made him cry out in his sleep, and weak and ill upon waking. And sometimes, sometimes at the back of his thought, Daniel could hear a beautiful lad's voice raised in mocking laughter.

 


End file.
